Rhotek
Classification and Dialects Most definitely an a priori englang with several interesting and unique features with verb tenses. It uses the CMFTP as its central tense/mood and builds all other tenses based off of that one. This language came into contact with Spanish at some point during the early Age of Information and therefore draws similar influence from it as English does. Phonology Consonants Vowels Phonotactics Writing System H Rules An h between two vowels is realized as ɰ while an h after a consonant modifies it. This usually is some form of devoicing Phonetic Inconsistencies Certain sounds are never seen together naturally, and if they are placed together due to a construction, they must be resolved (though it can be argued that there is no "conflict" but rather just a convention on where to represent palatalization). Sound resolutions are as follows: *SU » ŠÛ *ZU » JÛ *TU » ČÛ *DU » JÛ *KhE » ÇE *KhÎ » ÇÎ *IKh » IÇ *OKh » OÇ Vowel Classes Rhotêq has two classes of vowels, each serving a different purpose (assuming they are the last vowel of the word). Ÿ spans two classes. *The first class consists of Â, Ê, Î, Ô, Û, and Ÿ *The second class is composed of A, E, I, O, U, and Ÿ Decareting Decareting is pronounced /dikeɹədiŋ/ and is the process by which vowels change classes (aside from regular careting, which is far less common). Decareting consists of the following changes. These are not in any particular chronological order, as decareting can only happen once (Aka Ÿ » Û doesn't change to U in the last change). *Û » U *Ÿ » Û *E » Ÿ *Â » A *Ê » E *Î » I *Ô » O Grammar Nouns As a derivationally agglutinative language, Rhotêq takes existing nouns and compounds them head finally. Nouns decline to case and number. Normal nouns, that is, words that are already nouns, are pluralized by adding -Č to the end, while constructed nounds are pluralized by removing the -Q and adding -Ç. This can lead to decareting of the last vowel, therefore word order must be maintained to avoid case confusion in the plural. All nouns have Ÿ as their last vowel in the intransative (absolutive). 'Class I' Class I nouns have Â''' as their last vowel in the ergative, and '''A in the accusative 'Class II' Class II nouns have Ê''' as their last vowel in the ergative, and '''E in the accusative 'Class III' Class III nouns have Î''' as their last vowel in the ergative, and '''I in the accusative 'Class IV' Class IV nouns have Ô''' as their last vowel in the ergative, and '''O in the accusative 'Class V' Class V nouns have Û''' as their last vowel in the ergative, and '''U in the accusative Verbs Verbs inflect only to tense (and arguably mood), and paraphrastic constructions are very prominent in this language. 'Primary Form' The conditional form of the verb is used as the citation form, and also the infinitive. This form uses no affixes to indicate tense, mood, or any other quality and is simply composed of the morphemes definining what the verb is. 'Roadmap' The inflected verb forms are constructed with what is called a "roadmap", where the tenses are sequenced and there are morphemes that perform various directional manipulations on the verbs. The roadmap includes the perfect aspect as well. Starting with the conditional "primary form", these directional manipulations form any other tense. They come immediately before the verb (separate words) and are as follows *Sa - moves verb one space backwards on the roadmap. This includes conditional » past. *Tê - moves verb one space forwards on the roadmap *Če - moves verb two spaces forwards on the roadmap *Šâ - moves verb two spaces backwards on the roadmap. *Rho - moves verb one space to the side. *Vÿ - moves verb 1.5 spaces forward Keep in mind that the present and future are one space away. The near future is half a space between them. Sticky Morphemes Besides having an unusual name, sticky morphemes serve to make certain commonly used conditional constructions more convenient, although they do add a layer of conditonal complexity to the language. Sticky morphemes and their functions are as follows: * Syntax Word Order Within a standard sentence, the word order is SOVI, but occasionally this changes to reflect a different meaning. Lexicon Example text Category:Languages